Chapter 1381

Although akhromeyev reported to me that the artillery troops would not arrive at zhiluobin until noon, general povsky, the artillery commander of the group army, arrived at the headquarters at 3 a.m.

Looking at the sudden appearance of povsky, I gave up the plan to sleep for a while, and asked unexpectedly, "Comrade General, did you come alone, or did you arrive at zlobin with the artillery?"

"I'm with two close guard rocket battalions." Povsky took the tea that akhromeyev gave him, drank it all, and then answered me, "the other two close guard rocket barracks, the howitzer regiment and the cannon regiment are still behind. It will take at least four or five hours for them to arrive."

"Don't you mean to arrive at noon?" After listening to povsky's words, akhromeyev couldn't help interrupting and asked, "so we haven't taken you into consideration for the time being in the daytime fighting."

After hearing what akhromeyev said, povsky quickly stood up and said to me, "Comrade commander, although the artillery commanders and fighters have been very tired after a long journey. But if you need us to take part in the war, I believe the performance of the commanders and fighters will not disappoint you. "

"It's said that the artillery regiment only carries one base ammunition?" Although the main Artillery Force of our group army will arrive one after another in a few hours, I feel very uncomfortable when I think that povsky only let them carry one base ammunition, so I asked rather discontentedly: "this kind of artillery shell is OK for defense, if it is used for attack, it is far from enough. Do you forget how much we paid for the lack of shells when we attacked fastif? "

"Comrade commander." Povsky, who was criticized by me, said with some embarrassment: "it's not that I don't want the artillery to bring more ammunition, but that the shells that the superior promised to supply were not in place. Even the ammunition of this base number was pieced together by me, so I left two howitzer regiments in Smolensk. "

After listening to povsky's explanation, I found that I had wronged him. Just as I wanted to apologize to him, the telephone on my desk rang suddenly. Akhromeyev picked up the phone and said, "Hello, this is the headquarters of the group army. Where are you?" What, are you the commander of the front army Hello, comrade commander, what instructions do you have Yes, she is. Just a moment, please. I'll put her on the phone right now... "

Akhromeyev covered the microphone with his hand and said to me in a low voice, "Comrade commander, it's the telephone of the commander of the front army."

I quickly stood up, took the microphone from akhromeyev's hand, put it in my ear and said respectfully, "Hello, commander of the front army, do you have any instructions?"

After laughing twice, rokosovsky said apologetically, "Rita, I'm sorry to wake you up."

"Never mind, I haven't slept yet." After being polite, I repeated the question again: "do you have any instructions?"

"Well," rokosovsky continued, "in order for our troops to return to kalinkovich, it is necessary for you to establish a joint headquarters with general Batov's 65th army to command the troops in the area."

My heart sank when I heard about rokosovsky's advance of the joint command. However, in this case, I had to smile and say, "don't worry, comrade commander of the front army, my troops and I will certainly, under the command of general Batov, beat the enemy head-on and beat them to pieces."

"Batov command?" Rokosovsky said a little puzzled: "when do I say to let general Batov command?"

From what rokosovsky said, I could see that he didn't mean to let Batov be the head of the joint command. I couldn't help but feel ecstatic and said, does he intend to let me take the overall responsibility? Thinking of this, I tentatively asked: "commander of the front army, I don't know who will be in charge of the joint command?"

"Who else? You, of course Rokosovsky said in an indisputable tone: "although you are junior, your prestige in the army is not as good as general Batov. But he is far inferior to you when it comes to commanding operations. After much deliberation and approval from Marshal Zhukov, I have decided that you will be in charge of this joint command. "

"Great, that's great." Knowing that I could be in charge of the joint forces, I was overjoyed and couldn't help saying to myself, "then I can arrange the attack according to my own wishes."

"Rita, I'm here to remind you," rokosovsky said solemnly, "although the German army has begun to decline under a series of attacks from our army. But they will never give up, so we should always be vigilant. This time Batov was beaten away by the German army because he felt that the enemy was about to lose, so he took it lightly and was caught off guard by the enemy. "

"Comrade commander, please rest assured." I said to rokosovsky: "I will never have the idea of belittling the enemy because of the series of victories the army has won. In the next battle, we will continue to destroy the enemy. "

As soon as I finished my call with rokosovsky, I called Batov and told him about rokosovsky's decision. I want to tell him that I am the head of the joint command, and I has the final say in the direction and timing of the attack.

After daybreak, I called nikolasov and sherekin respectively, and told them to push slowly towards svelogorsk. No one was allowed to attack until the artillery arrived.

In order to facilitate the command, after consulting with Batov, I decided to temporarily form three divisions of the 65th group army into the third echelon. They will attack from the southwest of svelogorsk.

After arranging the offensive task, Batov asked me, "Comrade oshanina, I don't know where our headquarters should be located, whether to stay in the city or close to the front line?"

After thinking about it, I feel that there is no need to move the headquarters forward in a hurry before so many troops arrive. Thinking of this, I said to him with a smile: "general Batov, I think the headquarters should be set up in the city first. After our troops have captured svetogorsk, we can move the headquarters forward."

Batov obviously didn't expect me to reply him like this. After a long hesitation, he nodded and said, "well, comrade oshanina, since you think it's more appropriate for the headquarters to stay in zherov, I agree with you."

Although he said that he agreed with my proposal, I still felt a little helpless from his tone. It seemed that I was sorry that the headquarters could not be located near the front line. I know that according to the tradition of the Soviet army, the division level headquarters are usually located about 300 meters away from the front line positions where the fighting is most intense; The headquarters of the group army is a little far away from the battlefield, but it is definitely no more than two kilometers. Only the German headquarters would be located far away from the battlefield.

Instead of thinking too much about what Batov was thinking about, I was staring at the map and thinking about how to capture Svetlogorsk. According to the information I received this morning, the German army had built several solid lines of defense around the city, and there was a division in the city. If we don't come up with a practical way, the troops will pay a high price when they attack the city.

Seeing that I had been staring at the map and not talking, Batov could not help asking: "Comrade oshanina, there are solid fortifications around svelogorsk. If we do not have concrete sabotage bombs, it is very difficult to destroy these reinforced concrete fortifications."

I quite agree with Batov's statement. For example, most of the fortifications in the positions outside the city of zhylobin were still intact after two successive long-term German shelling. If we want to rush into the city, we must destroy all the German fortifications outside the city.

I scratched the back of my head and asked Batov with some headache, "Comrade General, do you have any good way to quickly clean up these enemy fortifications?"

"There are two ways." Batov thought for a moment, then said to me: "first, the German defense positions to carry out a long period of shelling..."

"No, the German army has strong fortifications outside the city. This method will not cause much damage to the enemy except wasting shells." I also specially stressed: "don't forget that the enemy used to bombard our Fortifications on the outskirts of zherobin for two consecutive days, but most of them are still intact. Moreover, the number of shells we have is limited. Even if we want to carry out intensive shelling on the German army, it is very difficult. "

"The second way is to apply to the higher authorities for a batch of concrete sabotage bombs." Seeing that I denied my first proposal, Batov added, "in this way, the enemy's fortifications can be destroyed on a large scale."

After he finished, I crossed my hands on my chin and seriously thought about which of the two solutions proposed by Batov is more suitable.

"Comrade commander, can I have a word?" Seeing that I was lost in thought, povsky quickly raised his voice and said, "as an artillery commander, I believe I have a very strong voice."

"Yes, general povsky, when it comes to artillery, no one here can match you." I nodded and laughed at him, and then said, "tell me, let's all listen to your opinions."

"At the beginning of the war, we had a lot of fortresses in Ukraine, and the fortifications were made of reinforced concrete." Povsky said with a sad face: "we originally thought that the troops could hold fast in the above areas for at least half a month, but in fact, these concrete works were all lost after holding fast for less than one day."

I didn't know what povsky said before, so I was surprised and asked, "Comrade General, what's going on? Why do we sometimes fail to attack German positions for ten days and a half months, but they attack us so easily? "

"The German army has special shock troops, which are specially used to break through the solid fortifications of our army." In order to convince me, Batov, who has rich combat experience, gave me an example: "the commando team is composed of engineers and light artillery. However, after encountering our fortifications, they usually bombard our blockhouses with artillery fire to suppress our firepower, and then engineers come forward to throw grenades into the shooting holes to kill all the commanders and fighters inside. Finally, they sent out flame throwers to blow fire at the shooting holes of the blockhouse, and burned all the wounded or the remaining fighters inside. "

Batov's words made me feel stunned. What he said is similar to what I often emphasize about "bayonet on cannon". Before I could speak, Batov continued: "later, the German army replaced the original artillery with assault guns. This kind of weapon, unlike tanks, had to appear in groups. Instead, it was used as an auxiliary tool to cover the attack of infantry. After encountering the fortifications of our army, they were fired by assault guns aiming at the fire points, and then the engineers and flame soldiers added explosives and flame throwers to wipe out the people in the fortifications. " After listening, I looked at Batov and asked, "so what can we do to deal with them?"“ Unfortunately, there seems to be no particularly effective way Batov said with a wry smile: "the contents of our fortifications are too narrow. The commanders and fighters who stay in them can't move at all. Once they encounter the enemy's assault tactics, they can basically stay in them and wait for death." After listening to Batov's introduction, I had some idea how to capture the German peripheral positions. I turned to povsky and said, "artillery commander, we can also use this method to break through the German defense zone and rush to the city of svelogorsk as quickly as possible."“ This can only be tried. " After finishing these words, povsky saw an expression of discord on my face and quickly explained: "this time we came here, we only carried heavy guns, not 76.2 mm guns suitable for attack." Seeing my sad face, Batov suddenly said, "by the way, comrade oshanina, don't you have a self-propelled artillery regiment? If they are placed only a few hundred meters away from the enemy's position to destroy the enemy's fortifications, I think it is quite good. "“ That's right, that's right. " After listening to Batov's proposal, povsky said excitedly: "how can I forget our self-propelled artillery regiment. With them, it's easy to clear the German positions outside the city. "